Boot Camp Blues

by Megan Sparks

  “Well,” said Annie hesitantly, “I suppose Willoughby should get some credit for rescuing Marianne.”

  Tyler shrugged. “I guess.”

  Annie cleared her throat. “And it absolutely was not his fault that she fell for him so hard. He couldn’t help the fact that he was gorgeous.”

  “Maybe not,” said Tyler. “But he didn’t have to lead her on the way he did.”

  Annie frowned, feeling defensive on the fictional character’s behalf. “Maybe he was just being nice.”

  “Nice?” Tyler gave a wave of his hand. “Guys like Willoughby aren’t nice. They have an agenda. And his agenda was to get with Marianne.”

  “Well, she certainly encouraged him! And remember – he never asked her to marry him. She just assumed—”

  “Of course she did! She was young and inexperienced.”

  “Maybe he loved her back,” said Annie. “Maybe in his own way, he did the best he could.”

  Tyler shook his head and sneered. “His best wasn’t good enough, then. And in the end, he took advantage of her.” Tyler’s green eyes suddenly seemed to deepen, and his voice sounded sincere. “Think about it, Annie. They were from two totally different worlds. Their relationship was doomed from the start. Marianne was too innocent to realize that, so it was up to Willoughby to do the right thing. But he didn’t.”

  “That doesn’t mean he didn’t love her,” Annie countered. “Maybe he was torn between his world and hers.”

  Tyler mulled this over for a moment, then slumped in his chair and frowned. “OK. So maybe he did, ya know, care about her. A lot. Still, he should have known better than to get involved with a sweet girl like y—” He looked away quickly, catching himself. “Like her,” he finished quietly.

  Annie blinked. Had Tyler just apologized? And had she admitted that maybe part of what went wrong between them had been her fault, too?

  It was true – she and Tyler were from opposite worlds, just like Willoughby and Marianne Dashwood. But there was no denying there’d been an attraction, maybe even some real affection. It hadn’t worked out, but maybe they could get past the anger, past the blame.

  Maybe they could be friends after all.

  She was about to offer him a genuine smile when she noticed Kelsey glaring at them from across the room.

  Tyler noticed too. He immediately sat up straight and gave Annie a cool look. “The thing is, this is just a stupid assignment and Sense and Sensibility is fiction. In real life, any normal guy would have done exactly what Willoughby did.” He gave Annie a smirk. “The girl was a waste of his time. Any real guy would forget about her and move on in a second.”

  The words were like a bucket of cold water tossed in Annie’s face.

  So much for apologies.

  “Well, I guess you would know,” she said bitterly, slamming her book shut. “By the way, did you read the whole book?”

  “No. Why?”

  Annie looked pointedly at Kelsey, who was now openly flirting with Mike. “Let’s just say that Willoughby gets exactly what he deserves,” Annie snapped, referring to Willoughby’s unhappy marriage at the end of Sense and Sensibility. With that, she got up and stormed out of the classroom just as the bell rang.

  Chapter Four

  The rest of the day went by in an angry blur. Annie was barely able to focus on her schoolwork – the ugly scene with Tyler kept floating into her mind and riling her up all over again.

  By her last class she was counting the minutes until derby practice because she knew the exercise would shake her out of her miserable mood. Thank goodness Coach Ritter had arranged extra practices, or else she’d be heading home to brood. She needed to vent about Tyler, and she knew her teammates would listen and understand.

  Boy, was she wrong!

  The normally supportive atmosphere at the rink could be summed up in one phrase: CUT-THROAT.

  Five minutes into practice it became clear to Annie that the mindset of the Liberty Belles – who’d been working together like a well-oiled machine for the last several months – had shifted dramatically. They were no longer acting like a united team.

  Overnight, they’d gone from being collaborators to being competitors.

  Fierce ones!

  “Ouch!” Annie let out a grunt as she landed on her bum, hitting the track hard. Lauren had darted out in front of her in an over-enthusiastic block, causing Annie to lose her balance.

  “Sorry,” called Lauren, not hanging around long enough to offer Annie a hand up.

  Coach set them a familiar warm-up drill – Bus Stop – which should have been easy. But today it was a nightmare. Holly seemed to be trying to break the world record for speed on skates and Lauren’s actions redefined the term aggressive.

  Annie was no fool; she knew exactly what was going on. Since Coach’s announcement about the All-Star team, each girl felt it necessary to prove herself. Teammates were now opponents, for any girl who wanted to win a place on the team.

  “Well,” huffed Coach, “since you all seem determined to clobber each other, we might as well put that to good use. How about a scrimmage?”

  Annie looked around the rink. “Against whom? We’re the only team here.”

  “Against yourselves,” Coach said.

  Annie was put on the same team as Holly, which was a plus, since it meant they wouldn’t be jamming against each other. It was also a minus because Holly was a more experienced jammer than Annie and would probably get more track time because of it.

  But to Annie’s surprise, Coach chose Annie to be the starting jammer. It was clear that Holly saw this as a slight and Annie could see the slow burn beginning in her eyes.

  Holly wasted no time showing off her blocking techniques. Though petite, she was nearly as talented a blocker as she was a jammer and she clearly wanted everyone to remember that. But Annie wasn’t there to admire Holly’s ability – she had a job to do.

  She was in top form, breaking through the pack, then skating swiftly around the track and coming up to the pack again. But when the opportunity arose for Holly to whip Annie forward – a technique that could help their team score – Holly refused to play her part.

  Annie glided up to Holly and extended her hand, expecting Holly to grasp it and then use her strength to propel Annie forward.

  But Holly ignored Annie’s hand as if it wasn’t there.

  “Hey!” cried Annie, waving her hand in case Holly hadn’t recognized her intent. “Whip me!”

  Holly kept her eyes straight ahead, leaning into the curve.

  “Holly!” Annie shouted again. But the opportunity was lost and the jammer for the other team, Carmen, broke through the pack and scored four points.

  Oh, come on! thought Annie.

  Carmen patted her hips to call off the jam, and Annie immediately spun into a toe stop, glaring at Holly.

  “What the hell was that?” Annie hissed, folding her arms hard across her chest.

  Holly shrugged. “Why should I make you look good in front of Coach? There are only so many spots on that All-Star team roster. It’s every roller girl for herself now.”

  “Since when?” Annie demanded. “We’ve never played with that attitude before. Teamwork is one of the driving forces of derby. It’s why we love it.”

  “Maybe so,” Holly said, “but right now what I love is the idea of being on the All-Star team.”

  “The operative word is team!” Annie reminded her. “Haven’t you ever heard that old saying? ‘There’s no “I” in team’!”

  “That’s true,” said Holly, wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her arm, “but if you shuffle the letters around, there’s definitely a ‘me’ in it!”

  “Fine,” snapped Annie. “There’s another saying: ‘Payback’s a bitch’!”

  “Do what you have to do,” Holly challenged, then skated off, leaving Annie fuming.

  Play began again and this time, Holly was the jammer.

  Two can play this game, thought Annie. Usually when she
was playing blocker, Annie put all of her energy into doing whatever it took to stop the opposing jammer from getting past. But when Holly and the opposing jammer, Sharmila, sped up to the pack in a race to be first through, Annie barely bothered to swing her bottom in Sharmila’s direction. She didn’t make contact, and even moved her body slightly to get in Holly’s way. Quickly shifting aside, she allowed Sharmila to slip past and become lead jammer.

  It was sabotage, but Annie was too angry to care. She realized that she was intentionally hurting her own team’s chances of winning the scrimmage, but this was personal. This was about making Holly look bad.

  By the time the scrimmage was over, Annie and Holly’s team had lost by a whopping twenty-seven points. It felt terrible. Even seeing the furious look on Holly’s face didn’t give Annie as much satisfaction as she’d hoped.

  Panting, Annie bent over and rested her hands on her knees. She made it look as though she were catching her breath but really she was averting her eyes from the other team’s victory celebration. It was pretty obvious why they’d won – since Sharmila and Carmen weren’t trying out for the All-Stars, they continued to play as they always had – with the best interests of their team at heart. But Annie and Holly had done the exact opposite.

  If Annie had been more of a team player, maybe she and Holly would be the ones whooping it up right now.

  Coach Ritter blew her whistle and motioned for the Belles to join her on the side of the track.

  Annie could see the disappointment in Coach’s eyes. “Do you girls think I was born yesterday?” she asked, shaking her head. “Did you think I wouldn’t see what you were trying to do? Suddenly, everyone is trying to out-skate, out-block and out-jam everyone else in a misguided effort to make the All-Star squad. Well, ladies, that’s not how it works!” She swept her gaze across the group, finally landing on Holly and Annie. “If you let your teammate down, you let yourself down. This isn’t about showing off. All-Stars are team players, first and foremost. So I suggest you all start playing like the Belles I’ve come to know and respect. Got it?”

  The girls nodded and muttered their apologies.

  “One last thing before you leave,” said Coach. “My old team, the Illinoisies, are going to be offering a training camp, or ‘Roller Derby Boot Camp’, for high school students over February break. I’ve left a pile of registration forms on the rental counter for anyone who might be interested in attending.”

  The girls waited until Coach Ritter had gone before storming the rental booth.

  “Where is the camp being held?” Lauren asked Annie. “Here in Liberty Heights?”

  “Um...” Annie scanned the paperwork. “Nope. It’s going to take place at Great Lakes University.”

  “So it’s a sleep-away camp?” Lauren said grimly. “That’s about two hours away from here.”

  Holly let out a joyful shriek. “That is so cool! We’ll get to live on campus, party in the dorms ... and flirt with the college guys.” Then she shrugged and added, “Oh. And skate of course.”

  Sharmila rolled her eyes and smiled. “Glad to see you’ve got your priorities in order, Holl.” She picked up a registration booklet and began flipping through it.

  “We can be roomies!” Holly cried, dropping an arm around Sharmila’s shoulder.

  But Sharmila shook her head and pointed to the dates printed on the form. “Not me,” she said sadly. “The camp is the week of my grandparents’ wedding anniversary. I need to help my parents with the party. The form says all campers have to stay on campus and take part for the entire week.” She sighed and handed the form to Holly.

  “I can’t go either,” said Lauren. “My grandparents will be here from Arizona that week. I haven’t seen them in over a year, so I really don’t want to miss their visit.”

  When some of the other Belles saw the cost of the camp, they knew it would be out of the question for them, too. And Liz and Carmen had already said they’d be opting out of derby activities for the spring, so they wouldn’t make it either.

  There was an uncomfortable silence as Annie realized that Holly was the only other player considering attending the camp.

  Annie felt a wave of guilt for even wanting to go – money was tight so she couldn’t very well ask her dad to fund the trip.

  Mum, of course, was another story entirely. She earned a generous salary as a lawyer. Back in England, she’d gladly paid for Annie’s elite gymnastics training, which was expensive. So maybe she’d be willing to pay Annie’s boot camp tuition? Mum hadn’t been overly keen on roller derby when Annie first started, but when she realized how much it meant to Annie, and seen her in action when she’d visited Liberty Heights, she’d had a change of heart. Asking her to foot the bill for the camp might be pushing things, but still, Annie could ask.

  It was worth a shot.

  “Hey...” Holly’s voice jolted Annie out of her thoughts.

  “Oh. Hey.”

  “Listen,” said Holly. “I was a jerk out there.”

  “So was I,” Annie admitted. “I’m sorry. Coach was right about teamwork.”

  “Yeah.” Holly nodded. “So let’s stop being losers and start acting like the champions we are. Friends?”

  Annie smiled. “Friends!” she said, wrapping Holly in a hug. “And if I can manage to swing the camp cost, maybe you’d consider rooming with me?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Holly said, laughing. “I really do hope you’ll be able to come. After all, we Belles have to stick together, right?”

  “Right. On and off the track.”

  “Look out, college boys!” cried Holly.

  Annie laughed but didn’t comment. Personally, she had enough trouble trying to make sense of high school boys. If she was lucky enough to go to the boot camp, the last thing she would be worried about was flirting with college boys. She’d seen Animal House (one of Dad’s favourite old movies) enough times to know how fraternity parties could turn out. No thanks!

  As she followed the others to the lockers to change, she threw an arm around Lauren.

  “So it looks like my derby wife and I will be taking separate holidays this February,” she joked. “I hope our marriage can survive it.”

  Surprisingly, Lauren didn’t laugh at Annie’s quip. Instead, her eyes went serious, as though she wanted to tell Annie something important.

  “Is something wrong?” Annie asked gently.

  Lauren hesitated, then shook her head. “Nah. I’m just disappointed about missing camp.” She managed a small smile. “But you’ve got to promise me the minute you get back you’ll teach me everything you learned.”

  “It’s a deal.” Annie laughed. “And, of course, since I’m rooming with Holly I’ll probably get coaching in how to pick up guys! Don’t worry – I’ll pass on everything I learn.”

  “Yeah,” said Lauren, forcing a smile and then glancing away. “Great.”

  Lauren didn’t look very happy, and Annie didn’t blame her. Boot camp sounded amazing and she’d be upset if she couldn’t go either. Which was why she HAD to persuade her mum.

  Chapter Five

  “Why do they have to make turkey tacos?” Annie wondered, poking at the disgusting, vaguely Mexican gloop on her plate. “I know they’re healthier, but it seems like such a cheat. Tacos should be beef. With lots of sour cream and spicy sauce.”

  “Well, the cafeteria isn’t exactly known for its international cuisine,” said Lauren, taking the seat across from Annie and opening her lunch bag.

  Annie picked up one of the soggy shells. She brought it to her lips, but immediately put it down again. Not because the ground turkey smelled dodgy (which it did), but because what she spotted across the cafeteria was enough to turn her stomach.

  Kelsey was sitting on Tyler’s lap, and they were in the middle of a full-on make-out session.

  Lexie, who was seated beside Annie, rolled her eyes. “Where do they think they are? The Honeymoon Suite at the Motel 6?”

  Annie pushed
her tray away with a sigh.

  “Annie, please,” said Lexie, biting into her veggie burger, “you’ve got to get over this. I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic, but you are so better off without that cretin.”

  “I know, I know,” groaned Annie. And she did know. She was fully aware that Tyler was a stuck-up idiot. It was just a major blow to her ego to see him lip-locked with someone else. And the fact that the someone else was Kelsey made it even worse.

  “PDAs are in such bad taste,” said Lauren disapprovingly.

  “I know,” Lexie agreed. “I’ve never been a fan of Public Displays of Affection. Although, given that we’re talking about someone as toxic as Kelsey, maybe it’s more like a Public Display of Infection.”

  Lauren giggled. “Ewww!”

  Annie couldn’t stop herself from sneaking another peek. Tyler had his hands in Kelsey’s hair and she had her arms around his neck.

  “He was such a good kisser,” she said, sighing. The words were out before Annie could stop them. She felt her cheeks turn red when Lauren’s eyes flew open.

  “Well, I’m not surprised,” said Lexie dryly. “I mean, clearly, he likes to practise.”

  Annie laughed in spite of her mood and helped herself to one of the barbeque-flavoured crisps on Lexie’s tray.

  “Seriously, though,” said Lexie, patting Annie’s shoulder. “Love bites.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Annie. She lifted her can of Diet Coke in a toast and Lauren bumped her milk carton against it.

  A burst of static from the PA system got everyone’s attention. In the next moment, the principal’s overly cheerful voice filled the cafeteria.

  “It’s that time of year again, students! Tickets for our annual Valentine’s Day dance, the Cupid Cotillion, will go on sale tomorrow before homeroom. Love is in the air!”